SEX IN THE CLASSROOM

[Sakai]

 

I find this quite hilarious, mainly because it reminds me of some past encounters in Thailand.

 

 

 

http://www.bangkokpost.com/life/family/17245/sex-in-the-classroom

 

 

English teachers sometimes have to lay it on the line for their inquisitive students

By: Andrew Biggs

Published: 24/05/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Brunch

 

'Hello Khun Andrew. Do you have a good weekend?"

 

"No, no, no," I answer. "It must be 'did', remember? You are asking me a question about the past. Try it again." It is early Monday evening and I am meeting my regular students Wanphen and Wanphen, two Thai women who work as accountants for large Bangkok firms.

 

They share many commonalities other than the coincidence of having the same first name. Both are attractive Chinese Thais, with the round face and glasses; good Thai girls from good Thai families who were educated at good Thai schools. Despite these setbacks they have wicked senses of humour and very friendly dispositions.

 

Both are good at numbers as one would hope accountants would be. And - thank the Lord Buddha - both are eager to learn English. What a refreshing change from students forced to come face to face with me - thanks to well-intentioned parents - who'd happily give their right arm and perhaps even a few fingers of their left to skip Andrew's English class in favour of the latest Ben Ten episode.

 

Wanphen and Wanphen are also on the road to being fluent. They are at that stage where their pronunciation is a little off kilter and sentence construction is akin to building construction in this country - they will cut corners where they can, and as a result mistakes are inadvertent.

 

Oh, and did I mention they are both single? If I didn't, they will certainly let you know within the first five minutes of meeting them of their futile quest to find a husband. (I don't mean letting you know a la Nana Plaza bargirl: "You me same same - I like you - you no butterfly you take care me I love you forever buy me TV ok?" I mean they will casually slip into the conversation they are single and then will ask you via correct present perfect tense construction: "Have you come to Thailand with your wife?" then await your answer on tenterhooks.)

 

Not that Wanphen and Wanphen are desperate for a boyfriend. Quite the opposite. Both lead full lives with well-paid jobs and wonderful families. But they are smart and independent, something Thai men often don't deem attractive characteristics in a potential mate. And so here they are on a Monday evening, yet again, face to face with me, for our hour of Business English. And, as usual, Wanphen has forgotten her past tense.

 

I cross my legs and lean forward in my best rendition of a caring teacher. "Okay, Wanphen, try it again," I instruct in my best Mr Chips voice, deliberately deepening that crease in my forehead that has set like concrete with the ravages of time.

 

Wanphen doesn't miss a beat. "Did you have a good weekend?" she asks.

 

"Yes, I did, thank you. I went away."

 

"Where do you go? No, where did you go?" the other Wanphen asks me.

 

"I left Bangkok for the weekend," I said. "Can you guess where I went?"

 

"Did you go to Chiang Mai for the cool weather?" Wanphen asks and I shake my head.

 

"Did you go to Chanthaburi to eat fruit?" asks Wanphen and she is rewarded with the same.

 

"I know!" the first one shouts. "Did you go to Pattaya to get laid?"

 

There is the sound of an almighty crash, like a stricken aeroplane slamming into the side of a mountain, as my jaw drops to the ground. Surely I didn't hear that correctly. "Sorry?" I ask. "What did you say?"

 

The Wanphens are unfazed. "Did you go to Pattaya to get laid?"

 

She did say it! Now the other Wanphen can see there is something wrong and she attempts to solve the problem. She touches her friend's right arm as she says: "I think it should be 'Did you went', not 'Did you go'?"

 

The Wanphens launch into Thai as I surreptitiously pick myself up off the floor. "No. 'Did you go' is right," she explains to her friend. "It's only the first verb you have to conjugate. 'Go' stays the same."

 

I am now in one of those situations where I don't want to make a big deal of things, but I am beyond the point of no return, and any attempts to pretend otherwise will amount to my digging an even deeper linguistic hole. But I honestly don't know what to say.

 

"Ask me the question again," I say.

 

Wanphen says: "Did you go to Pattaya to get laid?"

 

Suddenly the other Wanphen claps her hands. "I know!" she announces triumphantly. "It should be 'were you going to Pattaya to get laid'!"

 

Her friend is unconvinced. "I don't think the past continuous tense is any better than the simple past in this situation," she hisses in Thai.

 

"But don't we use the past continuous for actions that were ongoing in the past for a specific period of time but are no longer occurring?"

 

"Yes, but this isn't an ongoing action. It's something that happened and finished in the past. Nor am I comparing one ongoing action with another action which describes the situation or sets the scene, which would warrant using the past continuous tense."

 

I am witnessing a schism between the Wanphens; there are expressions of discontent and confusion that flit back and forth between them. I can't let this go on any longer - imagine a friendship dashed over the various past tenses in English. Besides, could you imagine two young native English speakers having such a debate? Would we even know what the different tenses of English are to be able to fall out over them?

 

"It's not the grammar!" I finally blurt out, and the Wanphens are stunned into silence. Now I have really dug myself deep. Now I have to explain.

 

"You asked me if I got laid in Pattaya?"

 

Wanphen nodded happily. But the penny has dropped for the other one. "Why?" she asks conspiratorially. "Is it wrong to get laid?"

 

"Yes - no! - er, well, not really but - get laid?"

 

"Get laid!" she confirms.

 

"G-e-t l-a-i-d?" I ask.

 

Wanphen shakes her head. "No, no, no. G-e-t r-e-d. You know, for your skin. The way farangs like to lie in the sun on the beach."

 

That's when the tidal wave of relief engulfs me. "Get red!!" I shout, loud enough for the two classrooms beside us to hear. "You mean get a suntan! Oh thank the lord!"

 

Wanphen and Wanphen have always had a problem with their R and L sounds. "Rice" becomes "lice", "salary" becomes "sallallee", and "What's wrong?" becomes "What's long?" - hardly a proper question for any single girl to ask a potential boyfriend.

 

Now we're all happy. We go through the rules of pronouncing "R" without the tongue trill and I'm eager to change the subject before the two Wanphens ask the inevitable question that I fear, but oh no, here it comes. Too late.

 

"Khun Andrew, what does 'get laid' mean?"

 

I am too shy to tell them straight out, so I find a dictionary and hand it to them. What an interesting perspective to watch the silent enquiring faces of the two Wanphens as they look up L, then LA, then the word "lay", then its derivatives, including colloquial use.

 

Now the studious faces deep in the dictionary turn to horror. Pale skin turns to red. The two Wanphens glance at each other in prudish symmetry. Slowly, they turn towards me. Stricken aeroplane makes a double curtain call.

 

"Oh!" they cry. "We have the same idiom in Thai!"

 

"Well, that's settled then," I say.

 

"Not yet," barks the first Wanphen as both open their notebooks and pick up their pens in brisk accountant style. "Tell us all the other ways of saying it."

[Flashermac]

Looks like he wrote his own Wikipedia entry.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Biggs

 

[Sakai]

Cheap and good way to make his own publicity.

 

But then if he is allowed to write for the post then he must have some talent (not necessarily at writing but also at networking)

 

[Khun_Kong]

Even if his story is totally bogus (and it conceivably is not), it is clever and humorous. I'm sure that silly and funny language difficulties have happened to most of us.

[KimDidMeGood]

Good one!

[Flashermac]

It's conceivable, if unlikely. Never heard a Thai talk about Farangs "getting red" at a beach. Still, I remember one of my students confusing "R" with "L" in a composition, and having the audience all crapping at the end of a performance.

 

The wildest that's happened to me was from a girl of somewhat dubious morals showing off her English in the university classroom. We were studying newspaper headlines and I had them explain what the abbreviated style meant in proper English. One headline read: "SON KILLS MOTHER IN ACT OF LOVE". The gal's hand promptly shot. She blurted out, "A son killed his mother while he was fucking her!" My jaw dropped and the other girls asked her what "fucking" meant, so she translated it for them. She smiled proudly and asked if she was right. I explain that ... uh no, actually it was a mercy killing. A man's mother was dying of a very painful disease, so he did her in. The gal turned beet red and was quiet for the remainder of the period.

 

I'd noticed that gal and her closest female friend in the Patpong area at night on several occasions. And they were FRENCH majors, English minors.

 

 

 

[Sakai]

A French major can certainly work in soi Japan.

Would have loved to teach her French kissing

 

Thanks Flash: hilarious but so Thai

[Flashermac]

The students finally seem to have discovered not to call a dictionary a "dick". It's been years since a gal said to me, "Archan, you're my dick!"

 

Every university has its "bad girls" group. Unfortunately, it's usually hard for the Farangs to find out who they are. I did have a colleague who was shagging a cute 19 year old Chinese-Thai second year student from another faculty. He was crushed when she dumped him for an older guy who promised to pay for her MA in the States. We told him he should have known she was looking for a sugar daddy. When I was a young fella I always had one or two gals each year who decided I was the one they wanted to marry. Sadly, they were never the ones that interested me. If there is an Almighty, He must have a very sick sense of humour.

 

 

 

[Sakai]

Maybe you have a head shaped like a dick?

 

When I used to chase uni girls I found out it wasn't too difficult provided you are discreet (and of course no working there), grab cell/mobile phone number then see where it leads.

Naughty girls were always the ones ready to go on the first date.

 

I feel for your colleague but he was a fool, this is Thailand so when a girl (one who has the options to do so) finds a better match there she goes.

 

If God exists he does indeed have a weird sense of humour, call it destiny.

 

Flahs: Sandwich in English, could it have an equivalent in Thai from a relational perspective?

When a Thai girl offers you a sandwich with your friend but doesn't mean it in a sexual way of course.

 

This is the strangest thing which happened to me and she did not mean at all a sexual thing as she almost fainted when I explained her what meaning sandwich has in the west

 

 

[Boo Radley]

I find this quite hilarious, mainly because it reminds me of some past encounters in Thailand.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/life/family/17245/sex-in-the-classroom

...[snip]

Funny story